“It just stopped,” said Milan Milosevic, 39, from Vancouver, B.C.

No one was hurt and by 5:20 p.m., around 90 minutes after the train first came to a halt, all passengers had been safely evacuated, Seattle fire spokeswoman Dana Vander Houwen said.

Seattle firefighters were dispatched to the elevated tracks along 5th Avenue between Lenora and Blanchard streets just past 4 p.m.

Deputy Chief Steve Oleson estimated there were between 150 to 200 passengers aboard at the time. Firefighters used two ladder trucks to bring passengers down to street level.

“We’re just going to take our time, taking people down nice and easy,” he said.

The monorail’s second train, the blue train, is undergoing a $4.5 million renovation, but was pressed into service to help with the evacuation, pulling up alongside the red car about an hour after it stalled.

A metal plank was placed between the two trains and about 20 passengers at a time were evacuated, Vander Houwen said.

Milosevic, with his wife and two children, said they were en route to downtown when the train stopped, and then things got hot inside.

“The heat was unbearable,” he said.

Catherine Long, 76, a tourist from Tennessee, said the heat quickly took a toll on the passengers inside.

“That was the worst thing,” she said, after being safely evacuated from the train.

After about 20 minutes, Milosevic said, he and some of the other passengers opened an emergency door.

By then, firefighters were arriving and setting up their aerial ladders to reach the passengers.

Long, who was travelling with her husband, was placed in the front seat of a battalion chief’s vehicle to recover while she waited to be evaluated by a paramedic.

“I’m just shaken,” she said. “It’s a little nerve wracking.”

Firefighters were passing bottled water around to the other passengers and Metro Transit dispatched buses to help transport the people. More water was placed in baskets, sent to the passengers still waiting to be rescued.

Jann Wagner, of Los Angeles, was with her husband, two sons and a niece when the train broke down.

“Getting on the ladder was a little scary,” she said.

Afterward, she and her family posed with firefighters for pictures.

The monorail was taken out of service earlier this month due to electrical problems that sapped one set of drive motors of full power. At the time, officials with Seattle Monorail Services said the malfunction could result in sluggish speeds for the monorail, or leave it stranded.

It is unclear what caused the monorail to stop in its tracks Saturday. Representatives of Seattle Monorail Services at the scene declined to comment.

The two monorail trains, a red and blue train, carry about 2 million passengers annually between Seattle Center and Westlake Center. While the red train has suffered from mechanical problems, the blue train has also been out of service undergoing a $4.5 million renovation.

The red train is to be renovated later.

In 2005, fire broke out aboard one of the trains and, later, the two trains collided on the tracks.

City Council approved a contract this week for a study that will be conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Services.

Weirton Police Chief Bruce Marshall says the federal agency will conduct a preliminary site investigation and then design a plan for the birds’ possible removal.

Marshall says an estimated 70 to 100 wild chickens live in the Kings Creek Bowl area.

Resident Christina Foley has said the chickens are running free in the neighborhood, hiding in trees, roaming the streets and generally ruling the roost.

“There were people trapped in their home,” Monk said. “Water was rising and there was no way out. (There were) people with oxygen tanks and wheelchairs and there was no way out. They needed help.”Monk snapped photos of Groveland Mobile Home Park and then sent e-mails.”You really have to see this,” she said in e-mails she sent along with photos of tires floating by in her road. “We are trapped in. Literally, there is no way out.”"Finally, I e-mailed the radio station 107.1 and I was like, ‘Nobody seems to be coming in here to help us,’” Monk said. “We need help and we are trapped in. And then 20 minutes after that, news people started showing up here.”Emergency personnel realized the severity of the situation and sent large trucks to pull out the elderly and disabled people who had a few feet of standing water inside their trailers.Many were taken to the shelter at Sherwood Elementary School in Melbourne. Police then took some people back into their homes to save personal items.”I was just trying to help out the best I could,” Monk said. “I’ve learned that if you actually take action then someone might listen to you.”"She was worried about the elderly down there and nobody was doing anything,” Monk’s mother, Connie said. “So, she decided to get on the computer and see what I can get done.”